I didn’t want the field to go to seed: in the first year I could barely control the weeds, so I decided to dig it over immediately. After resting a day, during which I picked the beans, I began to dig the field. I couldn’t relax until that had been done. I dried the beans in the sun and stored them as seed crop. After long calculations and reflection I set aside a portion of the potatoes as well. I always held back from touching these. It was better to go relatively hungry for a few weeks than starve in the coming year. When my harvest was brought in, I came upon the fruit-trees in the very meadow where I had found Bella. I found an apple-tree there, two damson-trees and a crabapple-tree. The damson-trees bore twenty-four fruits, little spotted things with drops of resin on them, very sweet. I ate them up on the spot and had a stomach-ache that night. There were about fifty fruits on the apple-tree, big, hard-skinned, red-cheeked winter apples, the only kind of apple that really thrives in the mountains. Before, I’d always thought they tasted like turnips. I must have been very choosy and spoilt back then. The crabapple-tree was covered from top to bottom with its tiny red apples. You are really supposed to use them only in cider mash. I eat them, with some determination, all year long, for the vitamins. The apples weren’t yet ripe, so I left them where they were. It was a magnificent day, the air was already a little cool and sharp and I could see every tree and farmyard very clearly on the other side of the wall. The curtains were still drawn, and the two cows, Bella’s companions, lay in their deep and stony sleep. The grass, which had never been mown, reached up to their flanks and concealed their nostrils from me. A great flood of nettles grew around the little house. It could have been a beautiful expedition, but the sight of the two animals and the forest of nettles unsettled and depressed me.
Autumn was always my favourite season, although I never felt physically very well. In the daytime I was tired yet wide awake, and at night I lay for hours in a disturbed half-sleep and my dreams were more confused and vivid than usual. My autumnal malaise didn’t spare me in the forest, either, but since I could hardly allow myself to have it, it assumed a less extreme form. Perhaps I didn’t have the time to notice it. Lynx was very cheerful, in very high spirits, but an outsider probably wouldn’t have noticed the difference. He was, after all, cheerful almost all the time. I never saw him stay sulky for more than three minutes. He simply couldn’t resist the urge to be cheerful. And life in the forest was a constant temptation to him. Sun, snow, wind, rain—everything was a cause for enthusiasm. With Lynx nearby I could never stay sad for long. It was almost shaming that being with me made him so happy. I don’t think that grown animals living wild are happy or even content. Living with people must have awoken this capacity in the dog. I’d like to know why we have this narcotic effect on dogs. Perhaps man’s megalomania comes from dogs. Sometimes I even imagined there must be something special about me that made Lynx almost keel over with joy at the sight of me. Of course there was never anything special about me; Lynx was, like all dogs, simply addicted to people.
At times now, when I walk alone in the wintry forest, I talk to Lynx as I did before. I have no idea I’m doing it until something startles me and I fall silent. I turn my head and catch the gleam of a reddish-brown coat. But the path is empty: bare bushes and wet stones. I’m not surprised that I still hear the dry branches cracking under the light tread of his feet. Where else would his little dog’s soul go haunting, if not on my trail? He’s a friendly ghost, and I’m not afraid of him. Lynx, beautiful, good dog, my dog, it’s probably just my poor head making the sound of your footsteps, the gleam of your coat. As long as I exist you’ll follow my trail, hungry and yearning, as I myself, hungry and yearning, follow invisible trails. Neither of us will ever bring our prey to ground.
On the tenth of October I harvested the apples and laid them out on a blanket in the bedroom. It was now so cool in the morning that frost could come any day. It was time to fetch the cranberries.
This time I didn’t stop at the vantage point. I could immediately see that nothing had changed. Only the forests glowed in their magnificent new colours. It was windy, and the sun gave so little warmth that my hands grew stiff picking berries. I made some tea in the hut and gave Lynx a little meat, and then I packed the pail full of berries into the rucksack and went down the hill. I boiled jam from the berries and poured it into jars. This little supply, too, was to help me to survive the winter.
I now faced only two more tasks. The straw for Bella had to be cut, and I had to fill the garage with hay before the cold set in. I needn’t have hurried, since the weather stayed fine for a long time. I cut the straw with the sickle and raked it together with the dry leaves. It took only a day to dry, and I shifted it to a little space under the roof of the byre. Anything that didn’t fit there I stored in a corner of the byre. And finally I’d lugged some hay into the garage as well, and was able to rest.
Now I was actually sitting on the bench in front of the house, in the faint warmth of the midday sun, and it could do me no harm, for I was much too weary to brood.
I sat quite still, my hands hidden under my cape, and held my face up towards the lukewarm light. Lynx rummaged in the bushes and kept coming back to me to satisfy himself that I was all right. Pearl devoured a trout under the verandah, and then sat down next to me on the bench and started washing her long fur. Sometimes she stopped, blinked at me, purred loudly and then yielded once more to her instinct for cleanliness. As the weather was fine I still let Bella into the meadow, but gave her fresh hay in the evening; the grass in the meadow could no longer satisfy her, it had become hard and dry, and I’d cut most of it for straw. Bella had grown plumper, but I still couldn’t tell if she was expecting a calf. My hope was strengthened by the fact that for all those months she hadn’t once called for the bull. But I still wasn’t sure.
Spring, summer and autumn had passed, and I had done everything I could. Perhaps it was absurd, but I was too tired to worry. All my animals were nearby, and I had looked after them as well as I could have done. The sun tingled on my face and I closed my eyes. But I didn’t sleep, I was too tired to sleep. I didn’t move either, for every movement hurt, and I wanted to sit still in the sun, completely free of pain, and not have to think.
I remember that day very clearly. I can see the spiders’ webs stretched glistening between the trees, behind the stable under the spruce-trees, in the trembling green-and-gold air. The landscape assumed quite a new depth and clarity, and I wished I could sit there all day, looking.
In the evening, when I went from the byre to the house, the sky had grown overcast, and it seemed to me that it had got warmer. At night, despite being tired, I slept very badly, but it didn’t bother me. I lay there quite happily, stretched out, and waited. Once the thought occurred to me that it was a great waste of time to sleep at all. Towards morning the cat came home, snuggled into the backs of my knees and started purring. It was cosy and warm, and I didn’t need to sleep. But I must have gone to sleep in the end, for it was late when I woke up, and Lynx was furiously demanding to be let out. It was raining, and after the long period of drought I was very glad. The stream had almost run dry and the trout were in great distress. The rain hung over the forest in a grey veil, and higher up it concentrated into mist. It was warmer than it had been on the fine days, but everything glistened with moisture. I knew this rain meant the end of the autumn. It ushered in the winter, the long period that I feared. I slowly went back into the house to light a fire.
It rained for two days and grew cooler and cooler. On the twenty-seventh of October the first snow fell. Lynx greeted it cheerily, the cat was disgruntled and Pearl stared inquisitively into the white swirl. I opened the door for her, and she cautiously approached the strange white thing that covered the path. Quite slowly she raised one paw, touched the snow, gave a startled shake and fled back into the hut. Ten times a day she would try, but never managed to push her paw into the wet coldness. Finally she sat on the windowsill and dozed off, like her mother. The old cat was
tough and brave, but she didn’t like treading through the snow while it was still wet. At night she slipped out to relieve herself, but came back straight away. She is an extremely clean creature, a real angel of domestic hygiene, and she brought up her children to be as clean as possible too. She even ate her prey somewhere out of doors. Before, she probably hadn’t been allowed into the house at all. Pearl always brought her trout home, and Tiger laid everything he caught at my feet; he had to be stroked before he would touch it. But I’m very happy that the cat spares my feelings towards these little tokens, and that she is so extraordinarily independent. If she had to, she could get by without any help from me.
All my cats have had a habit of walking around their bowls after eating and then dragging them along the floor. I don’t know what it means, but they do it every time, without fail. In general, cats obey a practically Byzantine series of ceremonies and take it very badly if you disturb them during their mysterious rites. In comparison with them, Lynx was a shameless child of nature, and they seemed to hold him rather in contempt for that.
If I put one of my cats on the bench, it would jump down, walk up and down three times and then sit down exactly where I’d just put it. With this gesture the cats were asserting their freedom and independence. It always gave me pleasure to watch them, and my affection was always mixed with a sneaking admiration. Lynx seemed to feel similarly. He was fond of the cats because they belonged to us, and was particularly fond of Pearl because she never spurned him or hissed at him; yet he always seemed to feel a little insecure with the cats.
It was nice sharing a house with Lynx, Pearl and the old cat that first October. I finally had the time to pay attention to them.
It took only a few days for winter to set in. After that, the foehn2 came and licked the young snow from the mountains. It became disagreeably warm, and the wind went hissing day and night around the little house. I slept badly and listened to the baying of the stags, which came down from the heights for the rutting season. Lynx grew restive, and barked and whimpered even in his sleep. He must have been dreaming of hunts long past. Both cats were drawn outside into the warm, damp forest. I lay awake and worried about Pearl. The baying of the stags sounded sad, threatening and sometimes even desperate. Maybe it only seemed to sound that way to me; I’ve read quite different accounts of it in books, where it’s always described in terms of nothing but challenge, pride and pleasure. It may have something to do with me that I couldn’t hear any of that in it. To me it always sounded like a terrible urge that drove them running blindly into danger. They couldn’t know that nothing threatened them that year. The meat of a rutting stag is thoroughly unpleasant. So I lay awake and thought about little Pearl, so inexperienced and in such danger with her little white coat in a world of owls, foxes and martens. I only hoped the foehn wouldn’t last too long, and that winter would finally bring us peace. The foehn actually lasted only three days, just long enough to kill Pearl.
On the third of November she didn’t come home in the morning. I looked for her with Lynx, but we couldn’t find her. The day slipped slowly and mercilessly onwards. The weather was still dominated by the foehn, and the warm wind unsettled me. Lynx too kept wandering up and down; when he was let out he wanted to come back into the house and looked up helplessly. Only the old cat lay on my bed and slept. She didn’t seem to miss Pearl. Evening fell; I looked after the cow, cooked a few potatoes and fed Lynx and the cat. Darkness had suddenly fallen, and the wind rattled the shutters. I lit the lamp, sat down at the table and tried to read a diary, but my glance kept wandering through the gloom to the cat door. And then there was a scraping noise and Pearl crept around the corner of the cupboard.
The old cat sat upright, gave a loud cry and jumped down off the bed. I think it was this cry that startled me so much that I couldn’t get up immediately. Pearl came slowly closer, a terrible blind creeping and sliding, as if all her bones were broken. She tried to stand up by my feet, uttered a strangled noise and fell with her head hard against the floor. A stream of blood poured from her mouth; she trembled and stretched out. When I knelt beside her, she was already dead. Lynx stood beside me and started back from his bleeding playmate. I stroked the clammy fur, and felt as if I’d been expecting this day since Pearl had been born. I wrapped her in a cloth, and in the morning I buried her in the forest meadow. The dry wooden floor had thirstily sucked up her blood. The stain has faded, but I’ll never get rid of it. Lynx looked for Pearl for days, then he seemed to understand that she had gone for ever. He had seen her dying, but he didn’t seem to understand the connection. The old cat ran away for two days and then resumed her usual life.
I haven’t forgotten Pearl. Her death was the first loss I suffered in the forest. Whenever I think of her, I rarely see her sitting on the bench in her white glory staring at the little blue butterflies. I generally see her as a pathetic, bloodstained pelt, her eyes half open, broken, her pink tongue gripped between her teeth. There is no point resisting images. They come and go, and the more I resist them, the more horrible they become.
Pearl was buried, and the foehn died overnight, as if it had accomplished its task. New snow fell from the sky, the baying of the stags grew weaker and after a few days it fell entirely silent. I set about my work and tried not to yield to the sadness that had fallen upon me. Now a wintry peace had set in, but not the peace that I would have wished for. A victim had been taken, and not even the warmth of the stove and light of the lamps could create comfort in the hut. In any case I was no longer interested in that comfort, and to Lynx’s delight I often went to the forest with him. It was cold and hostile there, and that was easier to bear than the false cosiness of my warm, gently lit home.
I found it hard to shoot a deer. I had to force myself to eat, and grew thin again, as I had after the hay-harvest. I never lost this abhorrence of killing. It must be innate in me, and I had to overcome it over and over again whenever I needed meat. I now understand why Hugo left the shooting to Luise and his business colleagues. Sometimes I think it’s a shame that Luise didn’t stay alive; at least she wouldn’t have any problems getting hold of meat. But she would never take the back seat in anything, and so she forced poor Hugo into decline. Maybe she’s still sitting at the table in the inn, a lifeless, rigid thing with painted lips and strawberry-blonde hair. She loved life so much, and always did everything wrong, because in our world you can’t love life as much as that with impunity. When she was still alive I found her very strange, and sometimes repulsive. But I’ve almost grown fond of the dead Luise, perhaps because I now have so much time to think about her. In reality I never knew anything more about her than I know about Bella or the cat today. But it’s much easier to love Bella or the cat than it is to love a human being.
On the sixth of November I went on a long walk with Lynx, and took a path that was new to me. My sense of direction is very underdeveloped. I tend always to go the wrong way. But Lynx always brought me home safely when I got lost. Today I go only along the old familiar paths, otherwise I’d have to carve signs into the trees to find my way back. But I have no reason to stray wild in the forest; the deer still use their old trails, and I could find the paths to the potato-field and the meadow by the stream in my sleep. Even if I don’t want to admit it, though, without Lynx I’m a prisoner of the valley.
On that sixth of November, a cool, sunny day, I was still able to allow myself an expedition into new territory. The snow had melted again, and reddish-brown leaves, smooth and glistening with moisture, covered the paths. I climbed up a hill and clambered over a tree, a fallen giant, that pointed, wet and dangerous, into the valley. Then I reached a little level plateau, densely covered with beeches and spruces, where I rested for a while. At around midday the sun penetrated the mist and warmed my back. Lynx went into raptures about this, and jumped up at me with enthusiasm. He knew that this wasn’t a hunting-trip, as I hadn’t brought the gun with me, and that he could take a few liberties. His paws were wet and dirty, and bits of lea
f and sand stuck to my coat. Finally he calmed down again and drank from a tiny stream that probably only carried water from the little thaw of snow.
As always when I walked in the forest with Lynx a certain peace and cheerfulness came over me. I had no intention of doing anything but giving the dog a little exercise and keeping myself from fruitless thoughts. Walking in the forest distracted me from myself. It did me good to walk along slowly, to look around and breathe in the cool air. I followed the little stream downhill. The water thinned to a thread, and I finally walked on in the bed of the stream, because the track was overgrown and when I walked between the branches and held them apart I aways got a shower of cold water down my neck. Lynx began to get worried and put on his working expression. He was following a trail. Silently, his nose close to the ground, he ran ahead of me. He stopped in front of a little cave washed out by the water on the shore, half hidden by a hazel-bush, and showed me what he had found. He was excited, but not as happy as he was when he had sniffed out a deer.
I bent back the dripping branches, and there in the gloom of the cave, pressed close to the wall, I saw a dead chamois. It was an adult animal which now, in death, looked strangely small and thin. I could clearly see the whitish leprosy of mange that covered its forehead and eyes like a poisonous fungus. An ostracized and lonely animal that had come down from the scree slopes, the mountain pines and alpine roses to creep, dying and blind, into this cave. I let the branches fall back and shooed away Lynx, who didn’t seem averse to further examination. He obeyed reluctantly, and hesitantly followed me downhill. I suddenly felt tired and wanted to go home. Lynx realized that the dead, mangy thing had upset me, and hung his head despondently. Our trip, which had begun so well, ended with us both trotting along in silence, until the streamlet miraculously opened out into our familiar stream and we went home through the gorge. A trout lay motionless in the greenish-brown pond, and I started to shiver at the sight of it. The rocks in the gorge looked cold and dark, and I didn’t notice any more sun that day, for once we reached the hunting-lodge it had long since disappeared behind veils of mist. The dampness of the gorge lay like a wet cloth on my face.
The Wall Page 10